Sunday, November 27, 2016

I'm selling my Canon EOS 65OD DSLR companion with 2 lens allowing to cover all needs from portrait to action photography. I did many magazine covers and articles with it. CMOS sensor 18.00 megapixels, all info can be found here (https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-650d-rebel-t4i)

Sunday, November 20, 2016

I'm currently working in association with FLASH-RC on a new slope glider project , called the "Padawan 1.5", which we hope will be on sale soon.

It is a larger and revisited version of the Padawan I designed few years ago, a small EPP twisteron aerobat. This new version is now 1.5m wingspan, has a rudder, and will feature a fiberglass fuselage and foam weener wings. The airfoil has been specifically developped for this purpose by Thierry Platon. This should give a cute aerobat glider, compact, easily "foldable", giving a good compromise on perfomances and pleasure. We can already say that the plane will be manufactured in Europe with an objective of quality.

This summer, I worked on a prototype using a home made fuselage construction made from extruded foam covered with 0.6mm samba sheet. The wings were made with a foam care and also samba sheet, covered with vynil.

The prototype is a bit heavy for the size with a flying weight of 875gr, when it should be around 700gr. However it could fly in light conditions, is looking great in the air, roll rate is impressive and knife edge flying is easy.

In the meantime the master of the fuselage, rudder, and canopy have been milled, and I just recevied a picture of the molds.

A pre-serie should start soon and I'm very excited to see the result !

Here is a video filmed this summer at Col du Glandon, in light conditions.

I will of course share with you about the progress and the avaibility date as soon as I will have more visibility.

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

During last week F3F world championship, I tried an App, which also exists as a web site (https://www.windytv.com), and which is a great tool for our hobby.

We usually use Windfinder or equivalent weather forecast App giving the wind speed and direction, with sometimes the exact direction in degree, or rain forecast, temperature, etc ...

But what is missing is the mapping of the wind direction forecast applied on a map or satellite photo.

And this is exactly what Windyty proposes. This free App/Web include weather forecasts provided by meteoblue (meteogram, airgram, etc ...), but the best part is really the animation of the wind on a satellite photo, where you can see the evolution during the day, or the next days. Graphics are really nice, and nothing is missing as you can select the altitude, rain accumulation, temperature. The App is also very intuitive.

I greatly recommend this App if you have a smartphone, so you can see if the wind direction is correctly oriented to you local slope, or select the right slope among several slope.

The example below with one of my favourite slope "La Muela" in Spain, where you can see in purple the lines indicating the wind direction. The speed of the animation indicates the wind speed. the bar at the bottom allows to see the evolution of the wind speed/direction over a period of time.

Thursday, October 13, 2016

The Two Ocean Slope Soarers Committee would like to extend an open invitation to all French Pilots to our annual slope aerobatics competition, our next event will be hosted on the 27th to the 29th of January 2017. This would be an excellent opportunity to experience a holiday in Cape Town, South Africa while enjoying
your sport of slope soaring and precision aerobatics during the course of your stay.
Competition format:

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Following the huge earthquake in the area of Monte Vettore (a very popular and well know slope flying site) that took so many lifes, FrSky offered a production X12S customized for an auction to help the village of Arquata del Tronto.

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Back from the Col de Tende FAI with 2 new trophies, world cup and eurotour. First of all, a huge thank you to the organisers Allan and Paul Eytan, the CD, the base judges, the helpers. Without all these people the contest would not happen, so again "MERCI" ! Even if the weather was less cooperative this year, it is still a super competition in a atomishing landscape !

On friday, it was cold with the breeze coming from the north. After a quick welcome and registration, we moved to the north slope and, after a breafing, observed a minute of silence for the victims of the horrible terrorist attack in Nice during the bastille day.

Then the contest started in this north slope, close to the fortress and we managed 5 rounds in good but not strong conditions. The slope is particular, not straight, and without real edge, so the flying technic must be adapted, with a difficult anticipation, especially on the left turn. We finished around 6pm so could get some sport flying after.

On Saturday, the wind was supposed to turn to the south, so the organiser prepared the course on the nice south slope, before the north breeze starts to blow again. Instead to return to the fortress, we decided to install the bases on the back of the south slope, and honetly, it was a good surprise, the slope is more convenient and work the same than the other north slope. We did 3 rounds before the wind drops at the end of the afternoon.

It was a black saturday for me as after my run of round 7, while walking to the landing area, I totally lost the radio link on my neon orange Shinto which started to circle, out of control and crashed on a car. Hopefully nobody was injured, this is the essential. The car has light damages, the plane is heavily damaged, but this is secondary. I will post more on this later.

Sunday started badly to, when Tobias Reik, on behalf Thorsten Folkers, put a protest to ask the organiser to count my round 7 flight at 0 because the plane crashed outside the landing zone. Considering that the landing zone was indicative, not marked on the ground by a line and not checked by a dedicated judge, the protest was hard from my point of view, but ultimately was true, so the jury put me a zero score, too bad ! Curiously the same day, Siegfried Schedel didn't get a zero when loosing his plane from sight and crashing it down the valley far from the landing zone indicated. Selective rules you said ...? Anyway, This is really not a great sportmanship from the guys behind this protest as I was already hitted hard by the lost of an expensive model that was in addition my A-model. But ... lesson is learned !

At the end, the protest was ineffective as I had still a little margin, but no more joker, so no more right to make a mistake. Finally, this protest had the opposite effect on me, reinforced my determination and fight spirit and I managed to take more advance in the 2 rounds we have flown on Sunday ... sorry guys !

The conditions on Sunday were extremely variable with variations between 42s and 73s in few minutes, average being above 50s. We were expecting the wind to grow, but it didn't happen before the end of the comp. After 10 rounds, the constest ended and Espen Torp finished Third with consistent flying during all the contest with his Jedi, behind Thorsten Folkers flying a FS5. I ended the contest in first position flying the Jedi the 4 first rounds, then the Shinto the 3 last rounds before the crash it and finally the Stribog the 3 last rounds. The Stribog desmontrated that it was very competitive against the references on the market. Armin Hortzitz finishes 4th. Matthieu Mervelet did a good climb in the ranking to finish 5th. In the team ranking, the french team named "Kousoku Shinkou" (Matthieu Mervelet, Julien Honor, Pierre Rondel) finishes first in front of the German team "Schwaben" (Thorsten Folkers, Siegfried Schedel, Tobias Reik) and another french team "Al Lanes team" (Philippe Lanes, Sébastien Lanes, Allan Cohen). Best speed of the contest goes to Thorsten Folkers with a 37.61s

To put some pictures on this short report, please find my photo album below:

Saturday, June 25, 2016

MKS is releasing 2 new servos for the glider enthusiasts we are, the HV6130 and HV6130H (upright mounting tab for fuselage use) ! They use the same form factor than the DS6100 / HV6100 / HV6110 but use all metal case, and feature an upside-down high quality HV coreless motor installing, to reduce space. This servos will therefore easily fit in the smallest wing servo bay, used with RDS or LDS, or fuselage, and provide an incredible torque between 6kg under 6V to 8.1kg under 8.2V !!!

They are positionned between the 6125 and 6625 family, but are smaller than both. You will find the spec drawing below. They integrate 2 new interresting features with in addition to 3 ball bearings, 2 additional jewel bearings to strengthen the structure, and a Built-in Safe

System, which works as a protection against voltage draw when servo overloading and allow to land the plane safely.

Please note that the HV6130 will be available within 1 or 2 months, and HV6130H will come a bit later.